Are Silicon Valley’s deep-pocketed techies finally catching on to art collecting? While it’s well known that the tech capital’s top executives, like Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, IfOnly founder and CEO Trevor Traina, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen are avid collectors, it’s less certain whether the moneyed masses are ready to join in. Still, it looks like the art market in the San Francisco Bay Area is on the up-and-up.
FOG Design+Art, the region’s premier fair, attracted a number of top galleries for its fourth edition, which will be held at the Fort Mason Festival Pavilion in San Francisco from January 12 to 15, 2017. The fair will kick off with a preview gala on January 11 that will benefit the newly transformed San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). In addition, Stanlee Gatti—the event planner responsible for planning Kanye West’s 2013 proposal to Kim Kardashian at AT&T Park—will have a special installation called 21Pop.
Forty-five exhibitors from the worlds of design and 20th-century and contemporary art will have stands. Galleries making their FOG Design+Art debut in 2017 are San Francisco-based Almond & Co.; Mexico City’s kurimanzutto; Chicago’s Volume Gallery and Casati Gallery; Paris gallery Lorenz Bäumer, Paula Cooper Gallery, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, and Gavin Brown’s enterprise from New York; as well as global galleries Dominique Lévy Gallery, James Cohan Gallery and Gagosian Gallery. Returning galleries include Altman Siegel Gallery, MACCARONE, Marian Goodman Gallery, David Zwirner, Matthew Marks Gallery, Demisch Danant, Friedman Benda, Jessica Silverman Gallery, PACE, Salon 94, Anthony Meier Fine Arts and R & Company. “The participants for FOG Design + Art 2017 represent a growing interest from galleries towards having a presence in the Bay Area, and a faith that this has become a very serious market for art and design,” said Douglas Durkin, the co-founder of FOG Design+Art.
While dealers are excited about the collecting potential of the Bay Area’s one percent, the verdict is still out on whether the San Francisco Bay Area is a viable art market. Nevertheless, the proliferation of fairs there prove that there is interest in the air. In addition to FOG Design + Art, two other fairs, Untitled and Photofairs San Francisco, are coming to San Francisco in January. Untitled will take place concurrently with FOG Design + Art from January 13 to 15, 2017, at Pier 70 in the Dogpatch. Photofairs San Francisco runs from January 27 to January 29, 2017, in the Fort Mason Festival Pavilion.
FOG Design+Art, 2015. Photo by Drew Alitzer.
“San Francisco has had a very strong collector base for years, though the explosion of technology-based businesses in the last 15 years has helped to create an entirely new demographic of potential collector: younger, though beginning to show enthusiasm for this particular fair, and the importance of art and design in their lives,” said Durkin. “We believe the timing of FOG has dovetailed with this phenomenon, and so there is great interest nationally and internationally for dealers to want to be here.”
“There is a palpable energy around modern and contemporary art in the Bay Area, but it’s unique from what we experience in other places,” added dealer Dominique Lévy. “The collectors are highly independent in their thinking.”
See the full FOG Design+Art 2017 exhibitor list below:
Almond & Co., San Francisco
Altman Siegel Gallery, San Francisco
Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco
Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Casati Gallery, Chicago
Chamber, New York
Cristina Grajales Gallery, New York
Crown Point Press, San Francisco
David Gill Gallery, London
David Zwirner, New York
Demisch Danant, New York
Dominique Lévy Gallery, New York
Edward Cella Art+Architecture, Los Angeles
Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Friedman Benda, New York
Gagosian Gallery, San Francisco
Galerie kreo, Paris
Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York
Gladstone Gallery, New York
Haines Gallery, San Francisco
Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco
Hostler Burrows, New York
James Cohan, New York
Jason Jacques Inc, New York
Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco
kurimanzutto, Mexico City
Lebreton Gallery, San Francisco
Lorenz Bäumer, Paris
MACCARONE, New York
Magen H. Gallery, New York
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
Obsolete / SLETE Gallery, Los Angeles
PACE, Palo Alto
Patrick Parrish Gallery, New York
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
R & Company, New York
Ratio 3, San Francisco
Reform Gallery / The Landing, Los Angeles
Salon 94, New York
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
Volume Gallery, Chicago
Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia
Yossi Milo Gallery, New York